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Steam will ban you and not tell you why

They refuse to say why, apart from saying I violated the Steam Subscriber Agreement - which I read, and I haven't.

Their notoriously bad customer service has been unhelpful, basically saying the same thing (you violated the SSA and your account won't be reinstated).

Even if I did violate the SSA, how is it at all OK to not be clear about why you're locking someone out of their account forever? I'm not going to make a new account and buy games because it would probably just get banned as well.

I have 2 ideas - one is I helped some friends get cheaper games from my region (Russia). Some paid me via paypal (Steam doesn't allow this) and some via pints/beer/other games. This was strictly between friends - I didn't sell games online/ebay/on the Steam forums etc.

In Steam Support's second reply, they specifically said it wasn't because I was gifting a lot. And if it was, why didn't I get a warning like this guy: http://i.imgur.com/ALt6b.png

Either way, my beef with Steam Support is that they won't say why.

My other theory is they banned me because they think I'm using a proxy to buy games at Russian prices (which I'm not, I'm actually here for another 6 months) in which case it's a false positive and I shouldn't be banned.

The point is unless they tell me why I'm banned, I can't know if it's a false positive, and what I should/shouldn't do to not get banned in the future.

I'm ok with being banned for gifting friends games in exchange for money, as that's not allowed, but they should say that that's why, and so far they've implied that that's not the reason. And I haven't done anything else wrong.

1) I know people will jump on me about it, but "If this was Origin, there'd be six hundred comments and blood in the streets by now."

2) Off topic, but on that image linked, there's a line that says "We are always working with publishers to adjust their prices to be in line with what can be found at local retailers and online shops." Can we infer from this that publishers ultimately have the larger say in how prices are set on Steam, thus the ridiculous case of "Steam price >= retail shop price" (as seen in Australia) is the fault of the publishers?

Its basically because prices in russia are far better for video games than EU/US and they don't want people getting those games at those prices, I buy games from russia and activate them on steam but I will stop now just hearing about this case study.

1) I know people will jump on me about it, but "If this was Origin, there'd be six hundred comments and blood in the streets by now."

*Jumps*

The thread has only been here an hour and a bit, on Saturday no less. And there are plenty of us who aren't entirely comfortable with our somewhat diminished consumer rights thanks to mandatory online services like Steam forcing their digital contracts on us and circumventing the proper legal channels. No company should be able to seize an absolute fortune's worth of games, I don't care how well-intentioned they are.

For customer service part, dont just email or send electronic messages. Make sure you talk to anyone at Valve directly, at least a phone call. This is definitely not something routine. Maybe there are just some misunderstandings to be cleared, but clearance can only started by serious conversation.

But your case raises a more serious concern which I have been complaining about: publishers do not have legitimate reason to justify geo-price discrimination. Online activation DRM must be abolished or our consumer rights could never be respected and enforced.

Its basically because prices in russia are far better for video games than EU/US and they don't want people getting those games at those prices, I buy games from russia and activate them on steam but I will stop now just hearing about this case study.

I was in Russia during the Christmas sales and bought a handful of things. I wonder if they're smart enough to be able to pick someone that's actually in Russia from someone who's using VPN (or whatever it's called). Either way, it's been a month and nothing has happened to my account, so I assume I'm fine.

Funnily enough though, they wouldn't let me make any purchases with my Australian address listed... So in the end I had my Australian address listed, but with Russia as the country.

But your case raises a more serious concern which I have been complaining about: publishers do not have legitimate reason to justify geo-price discrimination.

I disagree. If publishers want places like Russia, China and Latin America to become relevant gaming markets (And they should, as Steam's recent success in Russia proved) games there can't cost the same as they do in the US or Europe.